'Weathering with You' film review: 'Your Name' director affirms his place in modern anime
Somehow firmly rooted in a living, breathing Tokyo - yet somehow still perfectly magical, the animated fantasy "Weathering with You" (opening in theaters nationwide Jan. 17) is a rich work of animation, wrapped around a story that drifts a bit.
In short: Young high-school boy Kotaro who has run away to Tokyo befriends Hina, a girl who appears to be able to manipulate the weather.
Filmmaker Makoto Shinkai proves that the beloved “Your Name” - one of the very best animated works of 2016 - was not fluke: Shinkai is a bona fide visionary of anime. "Weathering" is so meticulously and beautifully animated, often taking painstaking care to sharpen all the details of life in Tokyo. Each frame is a vibrant and striking sight to take in.
While "Weathering" superbly crafts Kotaro life in Tokyo, the story itself is slow to take shape. The first half hour is pure setup. At least everything speaks to Kotaro's character or his situation, but the story's direction is pretty unclear for almost the film's first hour. There are disparate threads hinted at, including a mysterious, prolonged rain inundating Tokyo, Kotaro's gig doing errands for a publisher and Hina caring for her young brother.
It doesn't help that so many aspects of Kotaro remain vague throughout the film. The story never elaborates what drove him to run away from home, instead settling on some ambiguous statements about how he felt isolated while living with his family. Even a little bit more specificity would have given Kotaro a bit more character definition - which would be especially helpful given the film’s somewhat uninspired conclusion.
For a film that thoughtfully and patiently builds up its story through the first and second acts, “Weathering” succumbs to a pitfall that many anime films fall into: the third act that’s basically just a chase scene. To American audiences, the best example of this would be “Wall-E,” which starts out as a soulful silent film … before just becoming a chase sequence aboard a space ship. “Weathering” takes its time in creating Kotaro’s life and revealing more and more about Hina — but in the end, it just becomes a chase sequence. It’s a pity to watch such a beautifully crafted work just devolve into the safest of narrative frameworks that injects artificial energy into the narrative, at the cost of its characters.
Final verdict: Although "Weathering" is a stunning work of animation, the actual story just takes too long to develop — and when all the pieces are set, it shifts from a character-driven story to a disappointing “lets get away from the authorities” plot-driven angle.
Score: 3.5/5
"Weathering with You" opens in theaters nationwide Jan. 17. This animated drama has a running time of 114 minutes and is rated PG-13 for suggestive material, some violence and language.
